Mankiw discusses how difficult it is to know when the Fed should exit its strategy of near-zero interest rates and large purchases of assets. The economy, by some measures, is still in bad shape, but by others it is almost back to normal. The new chair of the Fed will not have it easy.

John Cochrane worries that the Fed may soon micromanage the financial system in the name of "macroprudential regulation." Cochrane says that the "project is a hopeless quest, dripping with the unanticipated consequences of all grandiose planning schemes."

The Federal Reserve System was created in 1913, so 2013 was its one hundredth anniversary. Mankiw provides links to papers from a conference at the National Bureau of Economic Research that reflect on the Fed's first century.

An article discusses the appointment of Jeremy Stein and Jerome Powell to the Fed's Board of Governors. It illustrates how even though the Fed is largely insulated from politics, the appointments to it are not.

Martin Feldstein notes that bank excess reserves have increased dramatically over the past few years, but bank deposits have not. If banks decide to start lending those excess reserves, the money supply could grow rapidly.

An hour-long video shows Mankiw's recent lecture at Princeton. In a wide-ranging presentation, he discusses the current state of macroeconomics. In the process he addresses the policy difficulties created by the current slump and the long-term debt crisis.

Kenneth Rogoff argues that it is wrong to compare the recent recession to a typical recession. The real issue is that the world economy is badly overleveraged, and "and there is no quick escape without a scheme to transfer wealth from creditors to debtors, either through defaults, financial repression, or inflation."

Martin Feldstein argues that the anticipated second round of the Fed's quantitative easing will do little good and might do much damage. In particular, it may create asset bubbles and create volatility in the currency markets.

Niall Ferguson reviews Richard Posner's new book, The Crisis of Capitalist Democracy. Posner argues that Congress is trying to fix the financial system without fully understanding it. He also points out that by attacking bankers, politicians are distracting attention away from their own role in the current crisis.

David Brooks writes that "The premise of the current financial regulatory reform is that the establishment missed the last bubble and, therefore, more power should be vested in the establishment to foresee and prevent the next one."

Christina Romer, chair of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, discusses the parallels between the crises of 1929 and 2008. She argues that the policy response to the current crisis has been much better than the response in 1929.

Blogger Mark Thoma uses a speech Mankiw gave six years ago to defend Obama’s deficit spending. But Mankiw’s speech emphasizes that a deficit caused by spending may have a different long-term effect than a deficit caused by tax cuts.

Mankiw comments on how the current crisis will affect the introductory college economics course. He says that the fundamentals are still important, but that more attention will be given to the financial system, leverage, the limits of monetary policy and the difficulty of forecasting.

There is an article that summarizes how the current crisis started, how it spread and the actions taken to counteract it. There are also links to a large number of articles and videos on the same topics. This should be an especially valuable resource for instructors.

Allan Meltzer is worried that the Fed’s easy money policy will lead to inflation. He is also worried that the Fed has lost its independence. Paul Krugman is worried about falling wages and the possibility of deflation.

Robert Solow reviews Richard Posner’s book, A Failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of ’08 and the Descent into Depression. Along the way he provides insightful observations, as one would expect from a Nobel laureate.

Ricardo Caballero and Jeffrey Sachs offer their views on fixing the banking crisis. Caballero wants the government to promise to buy bank shares five years from now at twice their current price. Sachs wants taxpayers to take over the bad assets in exchange for an amount of equity to be determined later.

There is a link to a report by Glen Rudebusch about the unconventional monetary policy that the Fed has employed. It is necessary because the conventional method of cutting interest rates is no longer possible.

There is a link to a blog by Eugene Fama and Ken French. Fama discusses the problem of how government injections of equity capital into troubled financial institutions can easily become nothing more than subsidies to debt holders.